Get the Snake a Bell
by Veritas Found
Summary: Marinette's always been jumpy. Luka's pretty sure she always will be.


**Title:** "Get the Snake a Bell"

**Author:** Veritas Found

**Rating:** K Plus / PG / All Ages

**Characters/Pairings:** Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng; Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng

**Summary:** Marinette's always been jumpy. Luka's pretty sure she always will be.

**Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Author's Notes/Warnings:** This is all quickspinner's fault and we're not allowed to give each other ideas anymore until our WIPs are done. xP I wrote this instead of working on my Valentine's fic.

"_**Get the Snake a Bell"**_

Marinette was, by nature, a jumpy person. It was the main reason she didn't like horror films: jump scares and her _did not mesh_. She distinctly remembered when _Five Nights at Freddie's_ was getting big and dreading the day Max asked her if she wanted to play. UMS? She was down any day to kick his butt any day, any time. A game based on jump scares where you had to survive a night at a creepy animatronic restaurant? No, thank you. Hell. No.

Luka learned this early on, before they'd even started dating. He also wasn't a big fan of horror, but as he adored his sister to death every now and then he suffered through a film on movie night to make her happy.

…that was actually how Marinette and him finally got together. She had joined Kitty Section for a movie night, and unfortunately (or fortunately) it had been Juleka's turn to pick the film. He had already been planning on sitting near Marinette, but after the first scare she had scrambled from her seat to his lap and had stayed there under a blanket for the rest of the film. He wasn't quite sure when the kissing had started, but he knew the movie hadn't been over when Juleka had told them to go find a room if they were going to be gross instead of enjoying a perfectly good movie.

Marinette's lips had been more interesting than killer clowns, anyway.

But then he had shown up at her home the next day for a surprise visit (and maybe to do some actual talking instead of kissing and find out if the kissing thing could continue in an official capacity), and Tom had sent him on up with an offhand comment about how she was busy with a project. Luka hadn't exactly been quiet as he came up into her room: he'd knocked on the door and called her name and everything. But she hadn't acknowledged him until he was standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder, and she'd leapt nearly a foot in the air as a startled squeak escaped her, the fabric she'd been sewing bunched towards her chest. Honestly, he was amazed (and relieved) the needle hadn't gone through her thumb.

That he could expect: she had been in the zone. He'd been there himself plenty of times.

But then there was the next week, when he'd picked Juleka up from school and Marinette had been sitting on the steps, her sketchbook in her lap as she stared straight ahead. He'd stayed in her line of sight the entire time he approached her, but she still jumped when he bent to press his lips to her forehead. Or the time a few days later, where he was keeping her company while she watched the counter because her parents had had to make an emergency delivery. Nadja Chamack had come in with Manon, and even though the bell had chimed and they'd both called out a greeting to Marinette (_who had even answered them!_), Marinette had still jumped when Manon raced around the counter to crash into her legs.

"Darning," he'd finally told her that afternoon, when they had left the bakery behind and were cuddling on her chaise, "you need to chill."

"I have no chill," she had grumbled, pressing her face into his hoodie. "I am one hundred percent chill-less. You'll just have to get used to having a jumpy girlfriend."

He proved her point a moment later when his hand slid along her waist, just under her shirt, and she jumped hard enough to knock her skull into his nose.

He thought it would get better with time, as they got older and closer, but it appeared that was just who Marinette was. The day they moved into their first apartment, he had called to her from the living room that he was going to get takeout (it had been a long day and neither felt like cooking – not that they could, with the kitchen only half unpacked). He found her in the bedroom, leaning into one of the bigger boxes filled with blankets and pillows and trying to make the bed, and when he called her name again she shrieked and tumbled into the box. She pouted at him when he laughed, holding his hands up and mumbling a quick apology.

"Jerk," she huffed. "I should make you get pizza for that."

"Thai it is," he said, bending down to kiss her before he left. They never got pizza – he'd had enough of it in lycée during his delivery days.

Things only got worse with the defeat of Hawkmoth and the unveiling of identities. He lost count of the nights she woke up screaming – for a partner who was no longer there, for a future lost and known only to a bug and a bunny, for a childhood taken at thirteen and never seen again – and he had to hold her down, maintaining the thrashing until she stilled, her mouth still moving in silent screams as tears fell from wide eyes. He'd kiss her, murmur against her lips that it was a dream, it was over, it wasn't real anymore, and she'd jerk against his body as she came back to herself.

It wasn't like he couldn't understand. He'd read somewhere that most soldiers left the battlefield with some form of PTSD, and Marinette had been more than a soldier for a long time now.

And it was mostly harmless, anyway. Sure, there were the countless times her coworkers had startled her and she'd poked herself with a needle, and then there was the time she'd dropped a tray of croissants when her dad startled her. Pregnancy was hilarious, he was a little mean to think: she leapt a foot out of her skin every time the baby kicked.

"God help us when she starts walking," he chuckled, nuzzling his face into her neck as they watched an old movie on the couch. "She'll toddle in while you're folding the wash and give you a heart attack."

"Better than turning a sssssspeaker on and doing the ssssame," Sass commented from his perch in one of the shelf dens Marinette had made the kwamis the first week in the new home. To the casual observer, the arrangement looked like a piece of kitschy wall art: a tree with various shelves designed to look like birdhouses. Only those in the loop could recognize the Miracle Box for what it was, hiding in plain sight.

"Traitor," Luka shot, and Sass grinned at his bearer before hunkering down in his nest. He looked back at Marinette with a grin, his hand resting under her own on her stomach. "We could get the kid a bell. I mean, it didn't work for me, but maybe she'll have better luck?"

"I doubt it will help _him_ any more than it helped you," Marinette grumbled. They hadn't been able to get a good sonogram yet, their little one turning just right at every visit so that they still had no idea what they were having. Luka was banking on a girl. Marinette didn't care, but she'd love a little boy just to wipe the smug grin off Luka's face.

"At least my bell was just a bangle and not a collar," he chuckled in her ear. She grumped and turned away from him, pretending to pout but unable to hide her smile. It didn't hurt as much these days, the sharp sting of memory fading into a gentle reminder of wild green eyes and bad puns. Time was funny like that.

It was just a fact of their life: Marinette was an extremely jumpy person, and it seemed nothing would ever change that. It did mean, however, that the day her water broke neither of them fully realized it at first. Or maybe it meant he caused her water to break. He wasn't actually sure how that all worked, even after reading all the baby books he could get his hands on.

He'd come home from the studio, tossing his keys in the dish by the door, and called out a greeting. She called back to him from the kitchen, where he'd found her mixing cookie dough. He'd grinned and stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms as best he could around her, and she'd jumped against him with a startled squeak. A well-meaning taunt about her days as Multimouse was on the tip of his tongue when she tipped her head back, staring up at him with wide eyes.

"Darning?" he asked. "It's ok. It's just me. It's –"

"No, Luka, no," she gasped, her hands finding his and squeezing. "I think…my water just broke."

While Marinette waited by the door, Tikki tittering about her with soft encouragements, Luka dashed into their room for the hospital bag. He paused by the door, glancing back at Marinette's craft table.

He grabbed a bell and a piece of teal ribbon. Just to be safe.


End file.
